DOCTORS always use a thermometer to measure and check your body temperature when you have a fever. Have you ever wondered, how thermometer was invented?
In 1596, Galileo Galilei invented the thermoscope, an instrument that can only show if the temperature is higher, lower or same, as it did not have a scale.
Later in 1612, an Italian inventor named Santorio Santorio applied a scale to an air thermoscope. But its accuracy was poor as the effect of varying air pressure on the thermoscope was not understood at that time.[ihc-hide-content ihc_mb_type=”show” ihc_mb_who=”2,3″ ihc_mb_template=”1″ ]
Forty-two years later, the first sealed liquid-in glass thermometer was produced by the Grand Duke of Tuscany, Ferdinand II. His thermometer had an alcohol filling. However his thermometer was inaccurate and there was no standardised scale in use. Later in 1714, Gabriel Fahrenheit made a thermometer using mercury with improved glass-working techniques. In 1731 the Frenchman, René Antoine Ferchauld de Réamur (1683-1757) proposed a thermometer scale on which the freezing point of water was 0° and the boiling point was 80°. The Réamur scale is not in use today.
In 1742 a Swedish scientist named Anders Celsius devised a thermometer scale dividing the freezing and boiling points of water into 100 degrees. Celsius chose 0 degrees for the boiling point of water, and 100 degrees for the freezing point. A year later, the Frenchman Jean Pierre Cristin inverted the Celsius scale to produce the Centigrade scale used today (freezing point 0°, boiling point 100°).
By international agreement in 1948 Cristin’s adapted scale became known as Celsius and is still in use today.
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